One of my very favorite things about having this little farm is raising chickens. (Poultry-chicken is what I’m talking about today, not human chickens, although what a dream come true that would be!) The hens and roosters look so cool strutting and dancing around the yard. Their many, varied sounds are complex and beautiful. They control the worst of the bugs and most of the snakes. They contribute to the compost heap generously.

   Few are the people who eat a farm fresh, free range egg and still prefer to buy the thin, watery, comparatively anemic eggs from the grocery store. These are just so big and heavy and rich and flavorful, and most people who seem to know about such things say that farm fresh eggs are significantly more nutritious, too.

   Sometimes we find eggs that are even bigger than the normal giants we collect every day…

   Any input you have for any of these will be greatly appreciated. I am feeling kind of bad tonight, possibly heat stroke, and so writing this and asking for your brilliant, witty input is a heckuva lot more entertaining than researching this stuff on my own. Let’s hit it.

1. What is the average number of books a woman reads in her life time? How about a man? Feel free to apply any demographic you find interesting.
2. Why oh why do the alligator hunting Swamp People never wear gloves while gripping those wire fishing lines? Drives me crazy.
3. Do you think it’s true that people now have multiple life crises, once known as a mid-life crisis?
4. Is diet cola really, really bad for you? I mean, really?
5. Why do you think Americans choose not to vote? 
6. How many weeks until NBA season again?
7. Is it even legal to shoot and kill a wild alligator in Oklahoma? Because apparently we have them.
8. Does my buffalo understand me?
9. What are the statistical odds that my freakishly Jurassic (and not to mention gorgeous) watermelon vines will produce enough ripe, juicy fruit to us to retire at the end of this summer?
10. I would love to meet more authors. Do you have any suggestions?

   I have been running, you guys. Remember the Iron Goat? This is a pretty huge development in my weird life, and it brings with it lots of notable observations and new trains of thought. Today while running around our back field I literally got the giggles as one thing after another seemed to conspire against me. Against the spirit of positive thinking, I’m going to share some of it with you fine people. Following are some totally logical reason NOT to run:

• You have been over-hydrating all week and also drinking three tons of cranberry juice per day to ward off an odd pain in your back, so you need to pee every 90 seconds.
• You are wearing yoga leggings that are slightly baggy at the hips so they scoot down every time you bounce. Which is every time you take a stride.
• The horses occupying the field in which you are trying to run are so fascinated by your strange new activity that they stare at you until they have clearly lost all respect for you. Not that they had much to begin with. But still.
• The songs on your playlist are so much fun that singing along with them costs you more oxygen than your struggling lungs can afford. Teach yourself how to Dougie some other time, lady. 
• The abundant cacti are blending in with the prairie grass and the uppers of your shoes are thin fabric.
• It has been more than 90 seconds and your neighbor just drove down the adjacent dirt road, waving at you.
• I’ve heard that running can be addictive. Can I really afford one more addiction? Because we all know I am NOT sacrificing coffee. Or books. Or auctions and garage sales. Or gardening.
• Sometimes, just sometimes, honey bees might swarm you.
• If you sprain your ankle on those Oklahoma red rocks, your neighbor will definitely not be home any more to help or call anyone for you, because that’s just how things work.
• What if I get too skinny? (LOL)

   We have house guests this week and next. Not Couch Surfers exactly, though the two teen-aged boys did crash in the green room last night. We have kids here, rightfully belonging to our friends and our siblings. And we might just keep them.

   Yesterday, between swimming sessions, episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants, and high-speed rides to the mailbox, I stole a few minutes to iron a few work shirts for Handsome. Because, of course, life goes on. He continues to shake the globe up at the Commish, righting wrongs and striking impossible balances, so that I can continue to play with other people’s kids and dream up new gardens and write. Anyway, yesterday Juliana joined me while I ironed. She is the youngest in the set and a sheer joy. What follows is another conversation I will not soon forget.

   “What are you doing?” We are in the Apartment. She is seated on the small, salmon colored damask love seat across from mine. She had been watching the horses graze in the middle field, just outside our window there, and reporting to me the status of the rain based on pond-surface activity.

   “Ironing his shirts.” I totally resisted the urge to say painting elephants. I congratulated myself silently.

   “Why do you iron his shirts?” She was looking at me squarely now, her eight year old frame sitting as tall and straight as it could, her attention no longer divided between me, the rain, and the horses.

   “Well, it’s just part of how I take care of him.” She blinked those long, feathery eye lashes but said nothing. “I mean, he keeps me really safe and makes sure we have enough money for everything we need, and I take care of the animals and iron his shirts and stuff.”

   “Oooohhh.” Then she leaned forward dramatically, smiling with her eyes closed, and inhaled the steam from my iron. “I just love that smell!”

   “Me too, I love the way hot cotton smells, and sometimes I spray his cologne on his shirts after.”

   She giggled when some cold spray starch fell on her bare feet and shins. And we discussed how it could possibly reach our feet beneath the ironing board. Then she resumed the interrogation.

   “But why do yoooouuuu iron them?” Her little face shook at the exaggerated vowel sounds.

   “Well, the thing is, he earns all of our money. Aaaannnd he does all of the hard work around here, all of the heavy jobs and the tough jobs, and I do the pretty stuff like gardening and cooking and ironing.” I shook my face a little at my own exaggerated vowel sounds.

   “And shopping.”

   “Umm, yes. And shopping.” I searched her sweet face and grinned with hot guilt. She had been reminding me every three and a half hours that we needed to drive to town to replace a tire on one of the tricycles and also buy a chain for a forgotten bike we had unearthed from the barn the day before. “Also, sweetie, he doesn’t really like to iron shirts. I think he would wash his own clothes if he had to, but I don’t think he would iron them.”

   “Right, probably not.” She collapsed backward into the love seat and shuffled her tiny feet. I love, by the way, that she just flatly agreed with me on this. Made my day.

   “And if he went to the office with wrinkly shirts your Mom would totally make fun of him.” Her Mom, our friend, works at the Commish too.

   At this, her lush eyebrows arched with profound understanding, that serious look of innocent business that only an eight year old girl can convey. “Yeah, that’s definitely true.”

Hallelujah.

If You Need to Get Your Life in Perspective, 
Talk to an Eight year Old.
Borrow One if You Have to.
xoxoxo